Some of AB’s regular readers might have picked up on the fact that I’m obsessed with animal rescue. (Dan Crawford sure has!) And since AB is mostly an economics/fiscal-policy blog, it probably has readers who buy art and antiques.

Soooo …. I thought I’d pass this along. The key sentence is near the end of the article: “The ‘Brook Hill Dog’ print will be auctioned on eBay from April 3rd to April 10th by Braden River Antiques.”

And let’s hear it for Maureen Flaherty of Summerfield, Florida!

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UPDATE: Well, what I thought would be a sweet little post about a generous woman and animal rescue took a decidedly political turn in the Comments thread to the post, in the following comments:

Little John it is a picture of a dog looking through a hole in a fence. Or maybe half poking through that fence. I don’t think the implication is that somebody JAMMED the dog THROUGH that fence.

Then again people who know tell me I have little sense of humor.

Little John

April 1, 2015 10:21 am

Bruce you didn’t get the joke. Recently Ms. Mann had a post about an episode of animal abuse in Florida that she believed was emblematic of “Southern Brutality Culture”. But this post contradicts her stereotype of “Southern Brutality Culture”.

Bruce Webb

April 1, 2015 11:30 am

Well in all seriousness it doesn’t do that at all.

There would be nothing odd in knowing that some afficianado of dog fighting or cock fighting or bull baiting or fox hunting also loved their own horses and dogs. In fact that is more typical than not, I would suspect that most participants in ‘field sports’ are at least dog lovers.

This picture even in that context is about as ironic as one of Hitler giving candy to and accepting a flower from a little girl. In fact the very ability to separate pets from blood sport dogs in ones own mind is what is disturbing. No wonder I didn’t get the joke.

Beverly Mann

April 1, 2015 12:09 pm

Little John, my post about Southern Brutality Culture referred to a particular strain of Southern culture, not to all Southerners. People in other parts of the country don’t go around hanging black men, and never did, but it was commonplace in the Deep South for many decades and still occurs albeit rarely.

The woman who bought the lithograph lives in the Tampa Bay area and well may not be originally from the South. But obviously many, many people who are from the South are not part of the Brutality Culture. I know of a wonderful animal rescue organization based in a small, rural, very Republican north Florida county. I also know a woman in her late 40s who has lived her entire life in north central Florida and who until about a week ago, when one of her dogs died, had two rescue dogs and a rescue cat. The dog who died was elderly and had had a hugely enlarged mammary gland that this woman, who is decidedly non-upscale, could not pay to have surgically removed. The doggie always wore a coat in chilly weather and was carried from place to place when she couldn’t walk from, say, the curb back to her house, and was regularly petted and kissed. This woman’s other rescues are treated lovingly as well. Nor would this woman be caught dead harming animals, at all.

But there’s no question at all that a particular strain of Southern culture is in-your-face brutal, and that strain has gained control of the Republican Party, whose primary purpose is to destroy the social safety net. As Scott Walker demonstrates, it’s not limited to the South, but it does spring from a John Birch, KKK culture imported from the Deep South. Killing the social safety net is not an obsession that a majority of Americans, or, as the 47% thing showed, a majority of American voters in presidential elections, harbor, so I doubt that a Republican will be elected president any time soon. But most of the electoral votes that the Republican nominee will garner will be from the South.

Little John

April 1, 2015 3:55 pm

Yes it does Bruce. Go read her post. In that post she paints the South as a racist, violent, abusive place. There aren’t any qualifications regarding particular “strains” as she tries to explain in her recent comment. And there is no qualification that Southerners could actually love their pets but still love to hunt for example. The post is very black and white. Maybe I am being too literal but I thought words mattered.

As to Ms. Mann’s assertion that other parts of the country didn’t hang black people, well that’s patently false. And to say that the John Birch Society was imported from the South is also completely inaccurate. As for saying that Republicans primary purpose is “destroying the social safety net”, well that’s as ignorant as blanket statements about the South. I actually know some Republicans. They don’t want to destroy the social safety net. Of course they aren’t the entire GOP so maybe they are outliers.

Beverly Mann

April 1, 2015 4:44 pm

The John Birch Society was not founded in the South, and I did not mean to suggest that it was. It was, at least in the Midwest, where I grew up, well known to be virulently racist in the manner of the KKK (but without the physical assaults), and just as virulently anti-Semitic (as in, No dogs or Jews allowed). Its culture, again at least in the Midwest, was in essence a Southern transplant. It was very big in rural Indiana, for example, which has a large population of people whose family roots were in Kentucky and Tennessee.

And while I’m sure lynchings of black men weren’t unheard of in rural areas outside the South, it wasn’t anything remotely like accepted practice anywhere outside the states that comprised the Confederacy.

You do make an interesting point, though, when you say that Republicans you know don’t want to destroy the social safety net. That doesn’t surprise me; that seems to be an obsession of a small percentage of very active Republicans who, clearly, have gained a stranglehold on their party.

I read a day or two ago that Walker’s plan is to appeal to white men, some of them in key non-Southern states—Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania—where many, many white men have deep ties to labor. Since Walker’s cri de coeurs are destroy labor and kill the social safety net, he apparently plans to gain the delegates he needs to win almost entirely in the South. I don’t think Iowa has a lot of delegates, and most whites who are supportive of labor unions aren’t all that cray about the kill-the-social-safety-net thing, or at least don’t place a priority on it. This positively awesome issues combo didn’t work all that well for Mitt Romney in the general election in those states, or even for him in the primaries in those states, if I recall correctly. And four years later, more millennials and substantially fewer Reagan worshippers will be voting. It isn’t the ‘80s any ore, although huge swaths of the Republican Party haven’t noticed.

Meanwhile, about two weeks ago Jeb Bush suggested to an interviewer that he does not support the federal minimum wage. When this piqued the interest among political journalists (barely, but enough for him to realize that he needed to clarify, i.e., backtrack on this), Bush issued a statement explaining that he’s okay with the federal minimum wage as long as it’s never raised. Seriously; that’s what he said. I checked Wikipedia to see what the original Fair Labor Standards Act, enacted in 1938, had set as the minimum wage. It was $.25. I planned to post a post here at AB titled “Jeb Bush Says the Minimum Wage Should be $.25. Seriously.” Which I had done that, but I didn’t get around to it. Good thing its walker and not Bush who plans to appeal to white men. Not all white men are the Koch brothers or Art Pope.

I don’t see how these people expect to actually win the general election. Sure, as Paul Krugman noted in his column yesterday, most of the public has no actual idea of critical facts about critical policy, because no one (e.g., our president) deigns to disabuse the public of the incessant false claims of fact about … well … not just the cost of Obamacare but about, like, most economic and fiscal policy. And, yes, prominent and highly respected political journalists from major news outlets publish puff-piece articles about interviews they just had with, say, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder, in which the interview subject generically—but only generically—trashes Democratic fiscal and regulatory policy as, um, causing the spiraling inequality, but doesn’t pause during the interview to, y’know, ask the subject, say, what specific regulations and fiscal policies he has in mind how exactly this causes increased inequality.

But we are heading into a presidential campaign in which progressive groups will be presenting television and web ads that will educate the public about what these Republican candidates have said and done. The candidates’ goal of destruction of collective bargaining, and their thoughts about the concept of a federal minimum wage might even be subjects of a few of the ads. I mean, like, y’never know. And some of this information might even make it to the television and computer screens of white men. In Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And, who knows, maybe elsewhere as well.

Would it be a cheap shot to ask you if this is an example of Southern-Brutality Culture?

Bruce Webb

April 1, 2015 2:35 am

Little John it is a picture of a dog looking through a hole in a fence.Or maybe half poking through that fence. I don’t think the implication is that somebody JAMMED the dog THROUGH that fence.

Then again people who know tell me I have little sense of humor.

little john

April 1, 2015 10:21 am

Bruce you didn’t get the joke. Recently Ms. Mann had a post about an episode of animal abuse in Florida that she believed was emblematic of “Southern Brutality Culture”. But this post contradicts her stereotype of “Southern Brutality Culture”.

Bruce Webb

April 1, 2015 11:30 am

Well in all seriousness it doesn’t do that at all.

There would be nothing odd in knowing that some afficianado of dog fighting or cock fighting or bull baiting or fox hunting also loved their own horses and dogs. In fact that is more typical than not, I would suspect that most participants in ‘field sports’ are at least dog lovers.

This picture even in that context is about as ironic as one of Hitler giving candy to and accepting a flower from a little girl. In fact the very ability to separate pets from blood sport dogs in ones own mind is what is disturbing. No wonder I didn’t get the joke.

Beverly Mann

April 1, 2015 12:09 pm

Little John, my post about Southern Brutality Culture referred to a particular strain of Southern culture, not to all Southerners. People in other parts of the country don’t go around hanging black men, and never did, but it was commonplace in the Deep South for many decades and still occurs albeit rarely.

The woman who bought the lithograph lives in the Tampa Bay area and well may not be originally from the South. But obviously many, many people who are from the South are not part of the Brutality Culture. I know of a wonderful animal rescue organization based in a small, rural, very Republican north Florida county. I also know a woman in her late 40s who has lived her entire life in north central Florida and who until about a week ago, when one of her dogs died, had two rescue dogs and a rescue cat. The dog who died was elderly and had had a hugely enlarged mammary gland that this woman, who is decidedly non-upscale, could not pay to have surgically removed. The doggie always wore a coat in chilly weather and was carried from place to place when she couldn’t walk from, say, the curb back to her house, and was regularly petted and kissed. This woman’s other rescues are treated lovingly as well. Nor would this woman be caught dead harming animals, at all.

But there’s no question at all that a particular strain of Southern culture is in-your-face brutal, and that strain has gained control of the Republican Party, whose primary purpose is to destroy the social safety net. As Scott Walker demonstrates, it’s not limited to the South, but it does spring from a John Birch, KKK culture imported from the Deep South. Killing the social safety net is not an obsession that a majority of Americans, or, as the 47% thing showed, a majority of American voters in presidential elections, harbor, so I doubt that a Republican will be elected president any time soon. But most of the electoral votes that the Republican nominee will garner will be from the South.

little john

April 1, 2015 3:55 pm

Yes it does Bruce. Go read her post. In that post she paints the South as a racist, violent, abusive place. There aren’t any qualifications regarding particular “strains” as she tries to explain in her recent comment. And there is no qualification that Southerners could actually love their pets but still love to hunt for example. The post is very black and white. Maybe I am being too literal but I thought words mattered.
As to Ms. Mann’s assertion that other parts of the country didn’t hang black people, well that’s patently false. And to say that the John Birch Society was imported from the South is also completely inaccurate. As for saying that Republicans primary purpose is “destroying the social safety net”, well that’s as ignorant as blanket statements about the South. I actually know some Republicans. They don’t want to destroy the social safety net. Of course they aren’t the entire GOP so maybe they are outliers.

Beverly Mann

April 1, 2015 4:44 pm

The John Birch Society was not founded in the South, and I did not mean to suggest that it was. It was, at least in the Midwest, where I grew up, well known to be virulently racist in the manner of the KKK (but without the physical assaults), and just as virulently anti-Semitic (as in, No dogs or Jews allowed). Its culture, again at least in the Midwest, was in essence a Southern transplant. It was very big in rural Indiana, for example, which has a large population of people whose family roots were in Kentucky and Tennessee.

And while I’m sure lynchings of black men weren’t unheard of in rural areas outside the South, it wasn’t anything remotely like accepted practice anywhere outside the states that comprised the Confederacy.

You do make an interesting point, though, when you say that Republicans you know don’t want to destroy the social safety net. That doesn’t surprise me; that seems to be an obsession of a small percentage of very active Republicans who, clearly, have gained a stranglehold on their party.

Little john

April 1, 2015 7:59 pm

I guess I ruined this post, or at least the comments, by injecting politics and racism. Sorry. I just think that stereotypes of any persuasion are intellectually lazy. The southern racist stereotype really gets to me. I live in Texas which is considered the South, although it is really a place unto itself. I’ve met so many thoughtful, kind, compassionate people here who in numbers far outweigh the racist, mean jerks I’ve met here. We could go round and round about this but I would suggest that if you check out “Lynching Beyond Dixie: American Mob Violence Outside the South” you might reconsider your thoughts about the uniquely southern aspect of lynching. I’d also point out that although the Birch Society was huge in Indiana (so was the KKK) it was originally headquartered in Massachusetts. I understand that now it’s based in Wisconsin.
In terms of presidential politics I think a smart Republican would go after corporate welfare instead of attacking any aspect of the social safety net. I think for smart Republicans the Ex ImBank is the first shot in the corporate welfare battle. Let’s see which, if any, of the GOP candidates take up this fight.

You did not ruin the post as much as you are off topic and are trying to be on topic.
–

coberly

April 2, 2015 10:59 am

Beverly

I agree with most of what you say here… some of it passionately… but you destroy your cause by making enemies of “the South.” or “Scotch Irish” as you have done.

Please, please, learn to make your case for very good causes without employing racist stereotypes.

And try to teach your friend that “off topic off topic” is both wrong as a matter of following the topic, and annoying as hell to ordinary people who would like to have a conversation without a monitor controlling what they say.. where “off topic” usually means “i don’t agree with that.”

i have seen and been the victim of “hijacking” but as between hijacking and some sixth grade hall monitor who hasn’t got a clue, i’ll risk the hijacking.

little john

April 2, 2015 11:08 am

Interesting link run. I notice that nearly a third of lynchings in Texas are of white people. Hmmmm. That’s a weird case for racism. I’d also argue that the African-American population of a place like Minnesota in the late 19th century made lynching (of African Americans) almost an impossibility.
But, it is obvious that the majority of lynchings did occur in the South.

run75441

April 2, 2015 12:54 pm

LJ:

– “nearly a third of lynchings in Texas are of white people.” That is a misleading statement as 1/3 of all Texas lynching is not a part of the 352. Since we are talking only of the lynching of Black Americans, I listed only those numbers.

Bruce Webb

April 2, 2015 11:37 am

LJ if the ratio of lynchings in Texas is 2 black for every 1 white then absent a strong majority black population in that State the case for racism is not weird but instead de facto.

In any event it would take a hell of a lot of normalization of the numbers to somehow make a 2:1 ratio of black lynchees to white ones NOT a case for racism. For example how many lynchings of ALL races were there in Minnesota during this time? I mean Norwegians generally express a distaste for Swedes and vice versa (you oughta here the jokes told in a typical Sons of Norway Lodge – I was a member for more than ten years). But even back in the day we didn’t hang their Svens for whistling at our Ingrids

coberly

April 2, 2015 12:37 pm

Little John

in 1863 the state of Minnesota was on the point of lynching about 300 Sioux. but they were going to do it legal-like.

they were stopped, mostly, by the efforts of an Episcopal Bishop and Abraham Lincoln.

meanwhile i don’t see where accusing “the South” of being racist gets us anywhere. aside from demonstrating that “liberals” are exactly as capable of racist thinking as “southerners.”

for what it’s worth (not much, actually) i first became aware of “racism” in northern Michigan, and Chicago, and certain victorious generals from Ohio in the Civil War were demonstrably “racists.”

this does not really compare with the virulence of racism in the south (note “in” the south, not “of southerners” as a class (race). but, again, we don’t do ourselves any good by posturing ourselves as the “non racist humane and enlightened left.” we ain’t, and we have a better chance of curing the evils of racism if we don’t turn it into a sort of holier than thou cause for hating our neighbor.

there are aspects of “racism” in the old South (and in New York) that would be funny– in terms of self-deception — if they weren’t so tragic. but we ourselves do pretty well in the self-deception department.

coberly

April 2, 2015 12:53 pm

Bruce

I know someone who loves his hunting dog. but he still keeps the dog in a 3 by five cage outdoors with a concrete floor.

i know how cruel this is, but my chance of convincing him is exactly zero.